Reelin' In the Years

"Reelin' In the Years"
Single by Steely Dan
from the album Can't Buy a Thrill
B-side	"Only a Fool Would Say That"
Released	March 1973
Format	7" single
Recorded	August 1972; the Village Recorder, Santa Monica
Genre	Rock, jazz fusion
Length	4:37
Label	ABC
Writer(s)	Walter Becker, Donald Fagen
Steely Dan singles chronology
"Do It Again" (1972) "Reeling In the Years" (1973) "Show Biz Kids" (1973)

"Reelin' In the Years" (sometimes "Reeling In the Years") is a song by jazz rock band Steely Dan, released as the second single from their 1972 album, Can't Buy a Thrill. It reached number 11 in the Billboard charts.^[1]

The song was written by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker and features Fagen on vocals. The song was also a #11 hit on the Pop singles chart in 1973. In March 2005, Q magazine placed the song at number 95 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page has reportedly said that Elliott Randall's guitar solo on "Reeling In the Years" is his favorite solo of all time.^[2][3] That solo was also ranked the 40th best guitar solo of all time by the readers of Guitar World magazine.^[4] Fagen referred to the song as "dumb but effective" in Rolling Stone magazine. The four-channel Quadrophonic mix of the recording has extra lead guitar fills not heard in the more common two-channel Stereo version.

• Donny and Marie covered this song for their variety show on January 13, 1978.
• The song is featured in Rob Zombie's 2005 movie, The Devil's Rejects.
• It was also used as the theme music for the television series Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive, which aired on BBC Three in the UK 11 July 2006 – 4 June 2007.
• The song was used in the 1999 movie For Love of the Game, the 2014 documentary film Life Itself, and as the theme song to the RTÉ television show Reeling In the Years which is a historical Irish documentary covering one year per episode.

Chart performance

Weekly singles charts Chart (1973) Peak position Australia 62 Canada RPM [5] 15 U.S. Billboard Hot 100 11 U.S. Cashbox Top 100 [6] 7

Year-end charts Chart (1973) Rank Canada [7] 90 U.S. Billboard Hot 100 [8] 68 U.S. Cash Box Top 100[9] 87

Personnel

• Donald Fagen – piano, vocals
• Elliott Randall – lead guitar
• Denny Dias – rhythm guitar
• Jeff Baxter – rhythm guitar
• Walter Becker – bass guitar
• Jim Hodder – drums
• Victor Feldman – percussion

References

1. Steely Dan USA chart history, Billboard.com. Retrieved May 28, 2012.
2. Steven Wheeler (1995-06-11). "The Led Zeppelin In-Frequently Murmured Trivia List v1.1". Led-Zeppelin.org. Archived from the original on 2012-02-16.
3. "Classic Rock Magazine Interview – 1999". Elliott Randall. 2014-06-20. Retrieved 2016-10-08.
4. "The 100 Best Guitar Solos of All Time - Page 4". Guitar.about.com. Retrieved 2016-10-08.
5. "Item Display - RPM - Library and Archives Canada". Collectionscanada.gc.ca. Retrieved 2016-10-08.
7. http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/rpm/028020-119.01-e.php?brws_s=1&file_num=nlc008388.100214&type=2&interval=24&PHPSESSID=dtlhqtcdftn9t40n27r4hds2h0
8. "Top 100 Hits of 1973/Top 100 Songs of 1973". Musicoutfitters.com. Retrieved 2016-10-08.

External links

• Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics
• Music Notes Entry